"Morgans" wrote in message
...

wrote

IMHO there should be NO MORE "open source" aircraft projects, until
somebody gets around to implementing a public, vendor-neutral RCS
(revision control system) for aircraft development, so that _any_
designer can submit and begin new projects and contribute to those of
friends and peers.

This is something that perhaps the EAA could sponsor?

I doubt there is enough interest to make it worth EAA's while, or anyone
else.

If you are designing your own airplane, you probably (or most do) want to
do a clean sheet design. If you know enough to be attempting your own
design, then you probably don't need to slow yourself down trying to adapt
someone else's details. You just do it yourself.

Plus, many that are designing and building their own are not capable, or
don't desire to put it all down in a computer. What does that really gain
them? A couple good shop sketches, and start building, is their most
likely course of action. If they do find the need to vary the design to
accommodate some needed change, why would they want to take the time to go
put the change into the computer. Only someone who is planning to publish
the design, or otherwise go into business would do that, and they sure are
not going to be interested in publishing the changes, and giving the whole
thing away for free!

I won't call you and others like you cheap *******s (g) because I don't
know you. That is kinda' tongue in cheek, but I think the basic idea
conveyed is correct. You just will not find a lot of people giving away
something as valuable as an airplane plan for free, when they could be
selling it.

If you want to buy plans, there are boatloads of people willing to sell
them to you for a couple hundred per pop. Buy a few plans and change and
scale them like you need them to be, for your needs.

Sorry I'm not more optimistic, and I really don't intend to offend. That
just is the way I see it.
--
Jim in NC

Agreed, and also a little more that I learned the first time that I
specified a small project to be formed from sheet aluminum.

There's a mildly embarrassing story that I tell on myself from time to time
that illustrates just a little of the problem inherent in drawing up nice,
plans to produce something that could readily just be hammered together and
used. Sometime in the freshman or sophomore year of mechanical engineering,
I took mechanical drafting--and I dare say that I was much above average.
It happened that, in class, we were also taught how we might expect sheet
metal to accept bends in the course of forming on a brake--which were taught
that the determining dimmension would be the center of the cross section of
the material with the result that the material inward from the center would
compress and the material outward of the center would stretch. Some years
later, I needed to specify the dimensions for a custom chassis for an
electronic device. I confidently drew up the plans, using just a little of
the fruit of that earlier education, and when the parts arrived the drill
holes were all misplaced--by (drum roll) about half of the thickness of the
material. Of course, I immediately challenged the folks at the shop that
did the work, and immediately learned that (another drum roll) I had been
taught pure popycock!

The moral of that sad little story is that cad drawings, or really any
drawings, which are supposed to permit a physical product to be accurately
reproduced, need to be drawn and/or reviewed by people who are familiar with
the way that such items are manufactured in the real world. Therefore, if
anyone is serious about creating fabrication drawings, I would strongly
advise that they start out with a few drawings of inexpensive sample parts
that can be used to evaluate some of the discrepancies that could occur; and
then pass the drawings, without any special explanation, to someone
experienced in fabricating from drawings. The result will determine whether
the drawings conform to real world practices.

That is not to disparage the Open Source idea. At least in the case of
computer software, Open Source seems to result in at least as good a product
as closed source proprietary and has the added feature that the program and
everything created from it won't become useless in the event that the
originating company ceases operations.

Just my rather long $0.02
Peter